Featured Database Articles

VMware and Oracle Setup Examples - Part 2

By Steve Callan

In the last
article, covering the installation of Oracle9i on Windows 2003 Server on
VMware Workstation, we saw how a virtual machine application could make
creating what appears to be an odd environment fairly easy to accomplish. Why
spend time building an Oracle9i environment, you may ask. The fact is that not
every business using Oracle has moved out of the relative dark ages with
respect to versions of the RDBMS. If you have the opportunity to attend a user's
group meeting, a common question for the audience is to show by a raise of
hands which versions are being in used. Version 8.1.7.4 is alive and well, and
so is the occasional 7.3.4. Plenty of 9.2.0.X is around, along with a lot of
10gR2, and a sprinkling of 11g.

Sometimes, the database is part of something larger. Case in
point: E-Business Suite. Versions 11.5.9 and 10 shipped with release 9.2, and
just because youre not upgrading to R12 does not mean you cannot upgrade the
database tier to 10g before you get around to the R12 upgrade (which comes with
10g). The point here, especially for relative beginners, is that you are not
limited to only knowing the release you started learning with. You can go back
in time if need be.

Installing Oracle Enterprise Linux

There are plenty of examples available on the Internet on
how to install Oracle Enterprise Linux. Some of them go into detail about the
required packages, but few give a 100% accurate list of the RPMs on the five
OEL5 disks. The first indication that an rpm is missing is during the startup
of Oracle Universal Installer via the runInstaller script. The typical error
has to do with a missing shared object file. You would think, of course, that
since Oracle Corp. is furnishing this release of Red Hat that it would have
been a bit more specific about what it takes to make the OEL distribution
install ready for the RDBMS. Even if you select all optional features, you
still need to do some extra work. One of the quick fixes is to install the libXp
package found on disk 3. I mention this because Oracle somehow manages to
provide a working VM template with this combination of OS and RDBMS.

Aside from getting over the making OEL install ready, the
running of OUI and the creation of a seed database is pretty straightforward.
The VMware settings I used to run OEL5, which in turn hosts a 10gR2 database,
are:

The total disk space set aside for this includes enough
space for the install CDs and the creation of a seed database, and plenty of
room to grow the database for testing. The memory allocation of 1GB is good
enough, and the rest I let OEL pick up from the host (recall that OEL, as does
Windows 2003 in these examples, is the guest). One item you will probably want
to change is the host name. If you do nothing (or just accept defaults), youll
end up with a host name of localhost and a domain name of localdomain. These arent
very practical settings or values (but they work), so you can change them via
the same steps you would to change the host name if you were on a p-machine.

Once the database is installed, open up a terminal window
(send a shortcut to your desktop) and start the instance (open the database).

Within VMware Workstation, you can share drives and folders
from the host with your guest OS. If you note the VMware settings screenshot,
you can see that a USB controller and a CD/DVD drive are available. This
sharing capability opens up many possibilities, a couple of which are the
staging of traditional dump files from export/import, data pump dump files, and
datafiles comprising transportable tablespace sets.

Another feature within VMware is the ability to suspend your
session and restore it later. Using that will save a good bit of time as
compared to performing a server startup during power on.

Connecting Windows to Windows

In the last article, Oracle9i on Windows 2003 Server was
installed in the workstation. Can you connect, as in an Oracle Net Services
kind of way, the guest database to a host database? In this example, the host
database is Oracle 11g, running on Vista Business.

The two-way (or can be one-way, thats up to you)
configuration setup to establish connectivity between a database on the host
and one on the guest is nothing more than the standard TNS drill of editing the
tnsnames.ora files on both ends.

On the 11g/Vista Business end, after a typical default
installation, the tnsnames.ora file will contain something similar to:

Add the stanza, which defines the connection to the SID or
service on the guest system.

To test connectivity (e.g., going from the host to the
guest), use ping and tnsping. The example below shows the results of testing
from the host to the guest. This test is nothing new, but serves as a proof of
concept.

The IP address you see may have subnets or octets you dont
normally see on a home network (66.247 in this case), which is typically of the
form 192.168.0.X, with X ranging from 1 to however many devices (laptops,
desktops, printers, print servers, router, Xbox, etc.) you have installed.

Connections in general

One thing to be cognizant of is to not set yourself up for
failure by trying to span too many versions. This is true regardless of VMware
usage. In other words, version X may be too new (or old) to connect to version
Y. The chart below (extracted from a MetaLink note) should give you a pretty
good idea as to what the spanning tree looks like.

Individually, the version of Oracle you install may work in
the guest OS you configured, but it doesnt necessarily mean you will be able
to connect to every other version.

The possibilities are almost limitless

Listed below are some of the features, options, and
possibilities you can explore by using VMware.

Traditional export/import

Data pump

Transportable tablespaces

Database links

RAC

Data Guard/standby database

Oracle Net Services

GRID Control

Testing upgrades and patching, and being able to replay a session

Taking a snapshot of a session for rapid restore

Moving or replicating environments/snapshots between servers

In general, the list includes just about anything you can do to go
between different versions or Oracle and between different operating systems.

Another option at your disposal is to use partitioning  the OS kind,
not the Oracle table variety. PartitionMagic (from Symantec, and at a cost) and
GParted (freeware from Gnome) are examples of disk partitioning tools, but
these arent for the faint of heart when it comes to what is impacted during
their use, namely, they alter your computers boot up process. Another
limitation is that you are generally limited to using one OS at time, as
opposed to what VM allows, which is multiple operating systems running
concurrently.

In closing

In short, having VMware (or any virtual environment) at your disposal
provides the ultimate sandbox. As long as you have a safe point or state to
return to, it is practically impossible to permanently break anything. As a
DBA, especially when it comes to Oracle, you cant have too much experience
when it comes to knowing multiple operating systems and versions of the RDBMS
(and associated products too for that matter). Many companies are adopting VM
full steam ahead, so add knowing how to use a few VM applications (VMware, ESXi,
Oracle, etc.) as part of your repertoire.

Advertiser Disclosure:
Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which QuinStreet receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. QuinStreet does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.